“Has there been a ransom demand?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“We wait, then.”
Talitha wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “My lord?”
“We do nothing. If I had to guess, this is a tactic to draw soldiers away when we need them to guard the caravan to Mardesh.”
“That had occurred to me.”
“Then you know why we cannot cooperate.”
Talitha’s chest tightened. “My lord—”
“I can do nothing to stop you taking your own soldiers, that’s true. I will, however, withhold all provisions for your journey.”
Talitha felt as if she had been punched in the gut.
According to Ilian law, the ensaadi was the only one exempt from the ensaak’s rule. He or she had full agency upon coming of age and anything given to the ensaadi by the ensaak was no longer under the ensaak’s authority. That went for everything from soldiers to sandals.
It was an old law dating back to when the priests and nobles favored Ensaak Huktea the Mad’s daughter over her mother. They had given the old woman a choice—agree or face a coup.
Talitha could do what she wanted with her own warriors, but things such as food and water—those still came from the ensaak.
“If I were to send a small force, my lord—”
“I will not help you,” the ensaak said flatly. “Regardless.”
The ensaak had not outright forbidden her from anything since she had been a child. He had strongly expressed his disapproval, but never forbidden. “Is there another reason you want me to stay away from Kilgal?”
A muscle in her grandfather’s cheek twitched. He might know her tells, but she knew his.
“There is, isn’t there?” Talitha’s fists clenched. “You would sentence my most loyal general to death and God knows what else because of rumors more than a year old?”
The ensaak met her eyes this time. “Don’t deny what I can so plainly see, Talitha.”
Talitha wanted to scream at him and demand just what it was he could see. She wanted to punch him and overturn his table and jam that hot seal right between his eyes.
Instead, she took a shaky breath. Tears of anger pricked her eyes and she bowed, bending her neck like the obedient child she was. “As you wish, my lord.” She nearly choked on the words.
Chapter Two
“Out. Get out!” Talitha roared to the three chambermaids from the door of her suite.
The girls jumped, their rings and bracelets jangling. They looked to one another, clutching clean bed dressings and sweet oils for her bath.
“I said get out! Everyone!”
With a yelp, the servants scurried past—Phyri, who was betrothed to a groomsman; Jade, who loved to dance; and Ishtal, who had tried to join Zula’s battalion, but had been told she needed to work on her swordplay. Talitha didn’t think she’d ever raised her voice at any of them. Right now, she was too furious to spare their feelings.
What about her feelings? Was wanting to save her friend such a luxury? Was that truly so unreasonable?
“You’re dismissed!” she snarled to Zeroboam.
Bolting the door after them, Talitha seized the first thing she laid eyes on—a ceramic statuette of Anakti hefting high a spear in victory. Talitha had brought it into her room last month in hopes of appeasing Nehemian.
The idol smashed to the floor in thousands of pieces. Nehemian would be furious and say she’d committed blasphemy. Good. He shouldn’t have kept reminding her grandfather about Dunedrifters for the past year—it had to have been that priest. Talitha kicked the shards and stomped the larger ones into dust to be sure there was nothing salvageable.
She snatched up a pillow, marched to the nearest pillar, and smacked to pillow against the pillar. It hit with a dull thud, the pea shells crackling inside. Talitha struck again with a yell.
The shock rolled up through her wrists and rattled her shoulders. Perfect. She hit the pillar over and over until the silk burst and the pulverized pea shells spilled out. But she didn’t stop there. She screamed and beat the pillar until her throat was raw, her hands ached, and every last pea shell had been wrung out, leaving her with an empty cloth cover.
Breath after breath dragged in and heaved out. One particularly heavy breath caught in her throat, then broke out as a sob. Another sob followed and her knees buckled.
Talitha collapsed on the floor. Never had she felt so powerless, so useless. Not even as a child, when Sargon had beaten her with a riding whip.
What good was being ensaadi if she couldn’t even protect those who protected her?
“My ensaadi,” a voice said, stiff and formal.
“I said everyone out!” Talitha snarled, far less intimidating with tears and snot running down her lip.
“You sent for me.” Shaza’s pretentious tone cut through her misery. “If you’d rather water the tiles, I’ll be on my way.”
Talitha smeared her forearm over her face. She should have struck him for speaking to her that way. Or at least asked how he got past a bolted door. She didn’t. Crawling to her feet, pea shells crunched under her sandals.
For a moment, self-consciousness set in. Then she remember she’d once seen Shaza naked in General Krispos’s bed. She had as much leverage on the man as he did on her. Perhaps that was why they worked together so well.
The ensaadi cleared her throat and slammed her mask of composure back into place. “Report.”
Shaza stood straight as an arrow as if nothing had happened. “You were right. There were rumors that a Jak’mor contingent deserted some months ago. Something over their captain’s incident at an opium den.”
Talitha raked a hand through her hair.
“It’s entirely possible they seek refuge in Kilgal, Sharna, or Tajek now. Those other sigils you described are unidentified—the crossed shield and spear and the leaping fox.”
Closing her eyes, Talitha tried to think. “This broadens the pool of suspects.”
“Quite considerably. They could have been sent by anyone with enough coin and a grudge.”
“Kasrei…” Talitha shook her head. “It’s me. They took Gilsazi to get to me.”
“It’s clever, really. There’s no way you can win.”
Talitha fought the urge to snatch up a second pillow. “If I take warriors after him, I weaken the vanguard for the water caravan. If it’s attacked, I’m blamed and made out to care more for my friends than Ilios. If I leave Gilsazi, your father will say I’m abandoning my followers and can’t be trusted. I lose all credibility with the gentry at best.” And she would lose her oldest friend and strongest supporter at worst.
“I have no proof it was my father, sadly.” Shaza helped himself to grapes in the bowl beside Talitha’s couch. “I can promise I will be looking, though.”
Talitha turned her back. “I’m going to Kilgal.”
She yanked a box of silks and damask robes from inside her open wardrobe, rifling through the bottom until she found a sword wrapped in oilcloth. It was unmarked and notched with use, but polished and oiled to a shine. She’d had it cleaned and sharpened not too long ago before stuffing it back into her wardrobe where it had stayed for a year.
Shaza was silent for a long moment. “Are you, now?” When she faced him again, he was picking a grape seed from between his teeth, eyeing the oilcloth in her grip
“It’s where I would go if I were looking to hire swords for an ambush on the Fist.”
“The ensaak has forbidden it, I hear.” Shaza had heard that remarkably fast, but it came as little surprise. That was one of the reasons he was better as an ally than an enemy, why she had taken the trouble to win him over—he heard things.
“He did not forbid me taking an army, only provisioning one. If my army was already there…” She looked pointedly to Shaza.
The young nobleman’s lips twitched. “Kilgal, hmm? Clearly, I’m not your only source of information.”
Talitha wondered if Shaza actually hadn’t kn
own about her command to Zula’s spies or if he was feigning ignorance. The day she’d told Zula she wanted to hear any and all news of him, the dark woman’s face had shown more disappointment than Talitha had thought possible. Nonetheless, Zula had sent reports whenever they came. Talitha had read every single one, then made sure to melt down the wax tablets or burn the scrolls immediately after.
“You plan to just leave?”
“Yes. Gilsazi doesn’t have time. I will be gone for up to two months, perhaps more. I will leave Esreth to rule in my stead.”
“You think she is capable?”
“If I die for this, she will have to be.”
That seemed to satisfy Shaza. “You won’t be able to transport enough water to buy off fighters…or do you plan to pay them in some other fashion?”
Talitha gave him a hard look. She tossed the sword in its oilcloth case to the ground before hauling out a homespun traveling cloak.
“Don’t take me wrong, I wholly support humping one’s way to victory. I just didn’t think it was your preference.”
“You’re coming with me.”
For the first time, Shaza was taken aback. “I am?” He blinked, then his eyes narrowed.
“Take it however you like.”
Shaza shrugged in what was probably meant to be an ambivalent gesture, but he broke eye contact, suddenly interested in the plate of grapes again. “You have other enemies, my lady—Zerish, the dowager vizier; Ataxes, the captain of the guard you replaced with Zula; Mordna, the Grand Magister who thinks you’ll give her seat to Kasrei when you take power. There are many others, too.”
Talitha was well aware, but they all rallied behind Shaza’s father. If any of them had acted against her, she was sure it had been at the behest of the old priest.
“Not to mention the zealots. You should be seen in the ziggurat once—or more.” Shaza arched a brow at her, looking pointedly to the shattered idol on the floor. His silent stare was a strange contrast to the wailing and raging Talitha would have to endure as soon the old priest heard. “Perhaps then my father would not fight you so much.”
She didn’t want to discuss that at the moment. “I will announce my departure publicly to my grandfather. I want no questions as to where I have gone.”
“That would be wise. But is your Lonely God truly so opposed to a few bows to appease my father?”
Talitha stiffened, resisting the urge to kick the idol’s shards. “My piety is not your concern.”
“It is the city’s concern, so it is my concern.”
Sighing, Talitha marched to the door and rang the bell. “You will ready yourself to depart at first light. We take only ourselves and the provisions you can procure from my personal stores.”
There was not enough in her personal household for an entire army, but it would be more than sufficient for a pair.
“As you command.” Shaza didn’t question her, bowing at the waist. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure if he was a splendid ally or a splendid actor. Perhaps he was both.
Chapter Three
Talitha announced her plan to rescue Gilsazi before the entire court and her grandfather. Esreth was the only one she forewarned, not wanting her cousin to be wholly unprepared. Besides Zula and Shaza, not another soul knew beforehand.
The ensaak accepted her announcement and neither supported nor opposed. He simply nodded with a tight mouth and unblinking stare—that look of mild disappointment that had callused her heart a thousand times over.
There were whispers, gasps, and outraged shouts. If anyone approved of what she was doing, they kept silent. Shaza’s father expressed double outrage when he heard his son would be blundering into the wilderness with her. At least she would be long gone by the time he discovered the smashed statue. One day, Talitha meant to cut out the old man’s tongue.
Or perhaps she would have Shaza do it. He’d probably enjoy it most.
The pair rode out less than an hour later. She didn’t leave time for anyone to try changing her mind.
As Ilios disappeared beyond the sand dunes at their backs, a faint voice called from behind. Talitha kept her face trained forward, determined not to be stopped by anything, but the voice grew louder. The sirrush under Talitha warbled, sensing the approach of another animal.
“Anakti’s teats!” Shaza swore.
Talitha looked back and echoed his curse.
There was Kasrei, aboard a piebald sirrush. The magian rode like a madwoman, traveling robes flapping in the wind as she spurred the creature onward. If she was coming after them, mad was exactly the right word.
Talitha reined in her own sirrush, wheeling the animal around furiously. “Go back!” she shouted.
Kasrei spurred her mount faster.
“That is the opposite of back!” Talitha snapped, though she hadn’t really expected the woman to listen. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Kasrei reined in her heaving sirrush, steps before it ploughed into Talitha and Shaza. “I’m coming with you,” she panted.
“No, you’re not,” Talitha shot back.
“He’s my husband. I’m the only magian in the city who has fought battles and you may need a healer.”
All of those statements were true. Most magians were academics. Few had the skills, the quick reflexes, or the mind for battle. Ensaak Morzei had tried training magians in his army once. It had ended with many dead soldiers and half of them Ilians.
Shaza gnawed at his lower lip. “I’ve never understood magians.”
Kasrei ignored him. “Take me with you.”
“You just had a baby!” Talitha interjected. Chinasa was several months old and Kasrei had recovered quickly, but still.
“I have not forgotten.”
Talitha looked past Kasrei to Ilios.
“Don’t even think of sending me back!” Kasrei snapped. “I’m coming and no amount of ordering me is going to change my mind!”
Talitha caught Shaza’s grimace out of the corner of her eye and steeled herself. “I will not allow you to speak that way to me any longer, Kasrei. I have been lenient because we are friends, but you will not disrespect me.”
Kasrei’s mouth snapped shut and her nostrils flared. She opened her mouth again, but Talitha cut her off.
“If you wish to come with us, I will not order you to return. But if I did, you would obey me because I am your ensaadi. If you come, you will obey me because I am your ensaadi. Do you understand?”
Kasrei relaxed a little and went to take another breath.
“If you do not obey me, I will strip your rank when we return home. Do you understand me?”
Kasrei exhaled a heavy breath. “Alright.” She pinched the skin between her eyes. “Alright. Just let me save my husband.” If he was still alive.
“Do you have all the provisions you need?”
“Yes. Most of it was already packed from the journey to Ararat. Magister Enka is seeing to the house and Gilsazi’s mother has the children. She supports me coming.” In truth, it was impressive how quickly the magian had been able to get her affairs in order.
Talitha turned her sirrush back in a western direction.
“Jak’mor is south,” Kasrei pointed out.
“We’re not going to Jak’mor,” Talitha replied.
“Kilgal,” Shaza said with a smug grin, lording over the fact he knew and Kasrei didn’t.
“Kilgal?” Kasrei blinked. “They weren’t Jak’morian soldiers?”
“No, they were—once. They’re mercenaries now.”
Kasrei was quiet for a time. “Dunedrifters?”
Talitha had braced herself for that word and it came as more of an inevitability than a statement. “A band of them, yes.”
“You think—?”
Talitha sank her heels into her sirrush, spurring it into a trot before the conversation wandered into dangerous territory.
That night was one of the most uncomfortable in Talitha’s life. They rode until it was too dark, then found a rocky outcrop in the s
hade of a cliff. They built a meek fire out of scraggly trees and they supped on hard travel rations. Their sirrushes nosed at the nearby shrubs, warbling softly.
Shaza and Kasrei faced one another across the fire with Talitha between them. Both would glance to her every so often as if she were a child with sun fever. None of them spoke and finally Kasrei took first watch.
Lying in her blankets, Talitha turned her back to them. Blessedly, they both left her alone. Talitha thought about getting on her knees and supplicating the Lonely God, but didn’t want to draw attention. Instead, she satisfied herself with whispered prayers.
The sword from her wardrobe lay with her belongings and supplies, sharpened and oiled and cared for and waiting. Talitha’s heart pounded faster.
“Are you sure?” Kasrei whispered from her back, just as she was drifting off to sleep. “Are you sure he’ll help us?”
Talitha didn’t lie. “No.”
Yet there was a part of her that didn’t doubt it. The two of them had an accord, didn’t they? A trust.
Her mind had been circling and stabbing at the problem ever since she’d realized Gilsazi’s abductors were Dunedrifters. What if she was wrong? What if she was being ruled by that one shameful part of her that ached to see him again?
“I’ll figure it out,” Talitha answered. She needed to come up with a plan or at least reassure Shaza and Kasrei. Not having a strategy, a solid course of action before her, was terrifying. Perhaps she finally had sealed her own doom.
The rest of the night passed quietly and Talitha took second watch. Come morning, the three of them broke their fast on hard biscuits as those would go rancid first.
Kasrei leveled a stare at Shaza, eyes still bloodshot from sleep. “Are you certain about your choice of traveling companion, my lady?”
“I am as sure of him as I am about anything else right now.” Talitha rose then, shaking out her blankets and lashing them into a roll.
“I don’t see why I’m suspect,” Shaza quipped. “Only one of us has ever killed our liege lord.”
Kasrei’s nostrils flared.
Talitha had often noticed that the Sandsea had a way of stripping away people’s exteriors. Niceties and decorum didn’t stand up long to the blistering sun and endless dunes.
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